Life | Real Love Requires Sacrifice
Introduction
Love is a complex word. It has numerous different meanings, yet very few inflections and ways to infer its meaning. I love Chipotle and I love my girlfriend have two vastly different connotations, yet, if you analyze the sentences themselves, there really isn’t a difference. There’s a subject (the same subject!), then a verb (the same verb!), and then a direct object (the only thing that changes between those two phrases). When you read those sentences, however, you know that the word love means something different in each phrase.
My love for Chipotle really just means that I enjoy it. I’m glad Chipotle is around and I enjoy eating there. I’d be sad if I could no longer go there for dinner. Love for a significant other is more than that, though. What, exactly, is the difference between these two things? How does one express love for a significant other and why is that different from the love we have for restaurants, movies, or books?
Love Requires Sacrifice
The big difference, I’ve found, is the level of sacrifice required for the love. This isn’t just about giving things up, it’s also about making changes in your life. I don’t make changes in my life for Chipotle. The conditions surrounding my relationship with Chipotle are reasonable: I need to wear clothes in the restaurant and I need to pay for my food. They don’t even demand that I be kind to the employees (although, why wouldn’t I be? They’re doing the Lord’s work in there).
Chipotle doesn’t really demand sacrifice, ultimately. It isn’t a sacrifice for me to put on clothes and go to the restaurant (most days, at least) and their prices are fair enough that ten bucks for a burrito isn’t a sacrifice I’m unwilling to make. My “love” for Chipotle doesn’t ask much of me and doesn’t require any upkeep. If I stopped going for two years and came back, they wouldn’t be cold to me and they wouldn’t refuse my order; though they probably wouldn’t know my order like they do, now.
But love for a significant other does ask for sacrifice. It does ask something of you and it does require upkeep. You aren’t loving a restaurant or two hour film, you’re loving a living, breathing human being with thoughts, feelings, and (hopefully) a desire to reciprocate your love. Sometimes, the sacrifice required is simply sending an I love you reminder when you don’t feel like it and sometimes that sacrifice is more significant, such as offering an apology and admitting wrongdoing. You might find yourself giving up big things or changing significant aspects of your life — things that you would never do for a restaurant (no matter how much you enjoy their burritos).
Reciprocation Isn’t Always Necessary
We make insignificant sacrifices for restaurants because we receive something of equal value in return. In exchange for putting on pants and handing over less than ten bucks, I get a meal that could probably feed me for two days if I didn’t eat it so quickly. If suddenly the price of that meal doubled or if they started requiring that I wear a three-piece suit in order to be served, I’d stop going to Chipotle.
But, if my significant other were to suddenly be incapable of providing me with equal love, would I terminate that relationship? If, for example, she suddenly lost basic motor skills or was physically unable to tell me that she loves me, would I stop loving her? Or, in a less extreme example, what if she became too depressed to give love for a few weeks or months? Would I stop loving her and end the relationship?
No.
And that is the second significant difference between I love Chipotle and I love my girlfriend: the necessity of reciprocation. While equal give and take is greatly desired and encouraged in a romantic relationship, it isn’t always going to be possible. Circumstances change, but that doesn’t mean that the love should end. Obviously, if your love is repaid with relentless malice, that’s another story, but that’s a post for another day.
Conclusion
When I say I love Chipotle, it’s a casual, off-hand comment. When I say I love Scott Pilgrim vs The World, it’s a casual, off-hand comment. Neither Chipotle nor Scott Pilgrim demand significant sacrifices from me. I don’t have to give up anything dramatic for them and they always give me roughly the same experience each time I return to them. My love for them is a very different kind of love than the love given to a significant other.
With a significant other, the decision to provide love and to make sacrifices has to be made on an almost daily basis. Some days that decision is easy, other days that decision is difficult. Sometimes, it might seem almost impossible. A relationship with a significant other demands sacrifices, and when someone says I love my girlfriend, there are numerous connotations there. It means I’m willing to make sacrifices, it means I’m willing to make changes, and it means I’m willing to do this, even when it’s hard.
